Hold My Hand, It's Shaking Bad
by anthrop
Summary: In fifth period, Danny's ghost sense went off. At the same time, pain sharp enough to make him cry out involuntarily gripped his belly. He tensed, but the pain vanished as quickly as it had come. Weird.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: Cross-posted from AO3. Took the prompt of "What if the Maddie put blood blossoms in Danny's food, not knowing of their anti-ghost properties?" Three chapters total, lots of unreliable narrative courtesy one really messed up Danny. Expect body horror and vomiting._

* * *

"Mom made sandwiches today," Jazz said, handing Danny a brown paper lunch bag decorated with hearts and flowers in black Sharpie. "Tuna."

"Thanks," he replied, hastily shoving his lunch into his backpack. "Please tell me she didn't write us sappy notes again."

Jazz laughed. "You know Mom. She just wants to show she cares."

"Yeah, I know." Despite his beleaguered tone, he was grinning. Notes in his lunch were second grader levels of cheesy, but it was nice too.

"So do you want a ride from your big sister today or did you want to take the, uh, quicker route to school?" She raised her eyebrows and lowered her voice so that their father, cheerily doing his after-breakfast needlepoint in the family room, couldn't hear. It was more out of habit than anything else; the Disasteroid-and their parents finding out about Danny's little secret-had been months ago.

Danny checked his watch before tossing Jazz her car keys from the bowl beside the door. "I think I have time today," he said with a smile.

"Great! You can help me go over my psychology notes on the way there!"

"Oh c'mon, Jazz!"

* * *

"I know the food is terrible, but I still feel kinda bad for wrecking the cafeteria kitchen last week."

"Are you kidding me? I heard it might be a whole _month_ before they open the cafeteria again!" Tucker's eyes lit up as he opened his lunchbox. "It's nothin' but homemade sloppy Joe's for me from here on out."

"Besides," Sam added as she peeled a homegrown orange, "It's not like it was you who decided ripping apart the deep fryers while they were full of boiling oil was a good idea."

"Yeah but I-I mean _Phantom_-" He cast a nervous glance around their table. So far only those who'd physically been at the Antarctica site knew he and Phantom were one and the same, and he was leery of even that many people knowing his secret. "-should have stopped the Lunch Lady before that happened."

"At least Phantom managed to thermos her before anyone got hurt."

"_This_ time." Danny popped the lid off his Tupperware and tosses it aside, a sour expression on his face.

Tucker rolled his eyes. "Lighten up, dude. Phantom's gotten pro at keeping people out of harm's way. So a high school cafeteria and a couple walls got trashed-so what?"

"_So_ eventually Amity Park's going to get fed up with all the property damage Phantom's caused and try to foot me the bill. I don't even have a part-time job yet!"

"I'm pretty sure even politicians realize that ghosts don't really _do_ money," Sam replied wryly. When Danny's expression didn't change she set down her orange, touching his arm with her less sticky hand. "Danny, I'm serious. You're doing a great job keeping Amity Park safe."

His knit brows softened and he huffed. "You're right, I'll shut up now. Sorry."

"Good." She lightly punched his shoulder, smiling. "You're sending out some serious negative vibes today, and that's supposed to be my job."

"Please, Sam," Tucker said, fiddling with his PDA one-handed. "You're the cheeriest Goth we know."

Sam only shrugged, returning to her orange. "So Danny, what ectohorror did your dad pack you for lunch this time? Should I get my handy dandy wrist ray ready?"

"Nah, Mom banned him from the kitchen. Again. It's just a couple of tuna sandwiches, see?" He held one out as proof, then squinted at it suspiciously. "Oh gross, she mixed the tuna with a bunch of organic herbs."

"Funny, your mom never struck me as the green thumb type." Tucker paused. "Well, the farmer's market-going kind of green thumb anyway. I know she's got the ectoplasmic green thumb down pat."

Danny raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but didn't comment on the lame pun. "Jazz is trying to convince her to shop healthier. You know, less fudge and ectoweenies and more salad and-whatever's in my sandwich, I guess."

"If your sister's looking for healthy alternatives, let her know my greenhouse is open to her-just as long as she closes the door after her, of course." Sam shoved a slice of bright green kiwi into her mouth and spoke around it. "This dry heat's no good for my tropical babies."

"I'll be sure to let her know." He took a cautious bite of his sandwich, chewed thoughtfully and then brightened. "Hey, whatever she put on this is delicious!"

In the brown paper lunch bag covered in hearts and flowers drawn with black Sharpie, Maddie Fenton's note detailing both her love for her baby boy (all grown up and fighting ghosts, she was so proud) and the contents of his lunch went unread.

* * *

In fifth period, Danny's ghost sense went off. At the same time, pain sharp enough to make him cry out involuntarily gripped his belly. He tensed, but the pain vanished as quickly as it had come.

Weird.

Ignoring the concerned look Tucker gave him, Danny asked to be excused.

* * *

In the boy's bathroom he reached through the wall where he kept a spare thermos, but like in class, his stomach clenched in pain his brain translated as "really hot" and "holy crap I don't remember eating _knives_ for lunch." He wrenched his hand out of the wall, popping his hand tangible again as soon as it was clear. Again the pain vanished, not even leaving the trace of an ache behind.

_Weird_.

"What the heck is going on?" He looked down at his hand, but of course his hand was perfectly fine. Was something trying to disrupt his ghost powers?

Outside the bathroom, people began to scream in the hallways.

Gritting his teeth, he phased his hand through the wall again, knocking out the thermos as quickly as he could. He picked it up off the floor, gasping through another hard stab of pain. "I sure hope this is an easy ghost to deal with!" he said, bolting out the door.

* * *

He didn't know this ghost, but one look and he threw peaceful negotiation out the window. It was huge and froggy; which made sense, considering he found it in the science lab. When it's bulbous red eyes fell on him it _roared_, exposing a poisonous purple mouth ringed with stubby fangs.

"Guess it's gonna be the hard way," he muttered to himself. Rings of white light appeared at his waist as he broke into a run, transforming him from Fenton to Phantom. Unfortunately, he didn't even make it halfway across the classroom before hot pain made him stagger hard into a counter. He hit the floor with a scream, curling instinctively to protect vital organs, but when he was Phantom vital organs were optional so _why was he in so much pain?_

The ghost frog roared again, and he heard the purple claws of its huge webbed feet dig into the classroom floor. He rolled right and launched himself through another counter even as the pain (boiling hot, sizzling hot, he was _cooking from the inside out hot_) made him scream again. The ghost crashed through delicate lab equipment and a number of cardboard science projects, screeched, and turned towards him again.

Danny was on his feet, baring his teeth and hugging his middle (uselessly, there was nothing to keep from falling out, nothing stuck through him, there was only an awful heat that left his guts feeling overdone and slippery). "Gotta do this fast," he panted. He held up one hand, fired off three bursts before the pain rocketed through his skull and short-circuited his powers. Luckily for him the frog was big, slow, and close by; every shot hit. It was thrown against the back wall with a shriek of pain, three smoking holes in its slimy side.

His eyesight blurred, his head roared, his legs could barely hold his weight. He had no choice but to give it time to lurch to its feet, red eyes murderous. It opened its mouth, and before Danny realized what it was going to do its tongue, dripping something that makes the tile floor hiss and sputter, shot with a noise like a whip crack for him. It caught him by the waist and pain to match the fire in his gut ran through him. He screamed again, but kept his head enough to shed his legs in favor for his ghost tail. He quickly slipped free, but the pain remained-no, it _worsened_. Distracted, disoriented, dazed, he bumped up against the ceiling and barely managed to fire another two shots.

One of his shots missed entirely, blasted a hole through the wall instead, but the second nailed the frog in its gaping mouth. Apparently its-spit? venom?-didn't mix well with ghost rays, because its mouth immediately foamed and filled with neon green fire. It shrieked again, loud enough to rattle the windows, and lunged for him. He dodged-_barely_-and managed to grab one of its long hind legs before it crashed again. He'd done enough damage to the school this month; there was no need to wreck the science lab too.

The ghost frog, dangling head down scarce feet above the floor, croaked, convulsed, and _threw up another frog half its size_. The second frog was bathed in neon green fire from the first's mouth, and yet hardly seemed to notice. It opened its mouth and spat out a third frog. The third spit a fourth and so on, until Danny was surrounded by red-eyed ghost frogs spanning from the size of a full-grown bear to the length of his hand.

His tail flicked nervously, eliciting pain akin to a pulled muscle where he had no muscle to pull. Fuzzily, some part of him that was still together enough to do so asked: what was _wrong_ with him?

He couldn't answer that.

He dropped the first frog and fled.

* * *

He was getting worse.

It wasn't just pain, although that showed no sign of letting up anytime soon. No, the longer he fought-the longer he was _Phantom_-the worse he was getting, the _faster_ he was getting worse. His strength, his powers, his eyesight, even his _thoughts_ hiccupped, stuttered, blurred. Was he fighting six frogs or twelve? Was he imagining pain in his shoulder or had he fallen out of the sky? Had he puked or was that splatter of ectoplasm one of the smaller frogs? Blinked, missed precious seconds, and got thrown against a tree.

Losing focus, losing consciousness, he was nearly out of steam. The frogs wouldn't stop multiplying, growing, and multiplying again. If he wasn't so-

-he tried to summon a shield but his vision wobbled and how did he end up in the grass-

-out of it these ghosts wouldn't even make him break a sweat, but-

-frogs pinned him down, acid dripping from their burning mouths but he barely felt it because his guts were already _soup_-

-something in him was wrong, _catastrophically_ wrong, and he couldn't fight them in ones and twos, he had to take them all at once or not at all-

-slipped out from under them, barely managed a hover ten feet off the ground, everything was twisting and burning and it was familiarly awful, it was awfully familiar, but _what was this_-

-there wasn't a choice. He didn't want to, he didn't want to think about how much it was going to hurt him. But his classmates were still nearby, the teachers too, and he had to protect people, he had to save the humans, so there wasn't a choice.

He opened his mouth and began to Wail.


	2. Chapter 2

Everybody knew that Danny Phantom's Ghostly Wail was dangerous only if you happened to be hit directly by it. Or by the rubble it tended to cause. Or the shockwaves. Or if you were nearby and didn't mind a little hearing loss.

Well, as long as you were behind Danny Phantom when he let loose you would be fine. Probably.

Danny knew all this. He relied on it more often than he liked. His Ghostly Wail was powerful, _too_ powerful in his opinion, but he couldn't deny its effectiveness. Something was seriously tearing his insides up. He was falling apart, burning up, but he could at least manage to keep the evacuated students behind him for one last show.

In the end the ghost frogs were little more than volatile bags of ectoplasm. He made them all ankle-deep sludge long before his Wail faded to regular screaming, but once it got going it was hard to stop.

"Danny!"

His ears rang, there was an awful ringing in his ears. Everything slanted left, then right. He grew legs and landed, looking down a long, long tunnel of green light.

"Danny!"

His throat burned. His _bones_ burned. Something was coming out him, dribbled from his mouth, sluiced between his teeth. The taste-burnt, chunky, but unmistakably that of ectoplasm-made him retch between screams. He was knives all the way down.

"Danny!"

On his knees, he changed back and-_oh_. The pain vanished like smoke, he was empty of hurt, just like in the boy's bathroom-

-yet his guts still felt too hot, too loose-

-and everyone was safe now, he could sleep-

-movement, someone shaking him, calling his name?

"Tucker, call his parents, call them _right now_-"

"Sam-"

"Now! Danny, c'mon, wake up, this isn't funny-"

His eyes shuttered closed.

* * *

He woke up once, briefly, on the pell-mell ride home in the Fenton RV. He was on an exam table, loosely strapped down. Jazz hovered over him, swaying as their father drove manically through the streets. The ends of her long red hair tickled his arm.

He felt… out of focus. Like when he practiced multiplying himself. Looking at something from two separate yet still connected eyes, the inevitable disorientation when one head looked left and the other looked right. He felt nauseous.

Jack made a hard turn that sent Jazz crashing against the opposite side of the RV. Danny felt his stomach follow suit, actually felt something liquid and heavy splash inside him. It surprised him, enough to try moving.

His arm phased through the table all on its own, and fire bloomed in his chest.

"Danny!" He heard Jazz cry. Her hands passed through him, cool and grasping. When had he sat up?

"What's going on back there?" His father shouted urgently from the driver's seat.

"I don't know!" Jazz's hand slipped low, through his gut, and she yelped in pain and jerked away. "He's burning up!"

Another hard turn and whatever was inside him splashed again. His throat burned and it hurt to breathe-had to get it out, had to get it out, _had to get it out_-

"Danny?"

He pitched over the side of the exam table and vomited. It was loud, it was messy, and he was pretty sure he got it all over Jazz's shoes, but he felt _so_ much better, so much emptier, once he was done.

He felt himself flicker between tangibility and intangibility. He couldn't stop it, and each change felt like getting fried by the Specter Deflector-_no_.

No, not like the Specter Deflector at all.

Oh man, he was going to _kill_ Jazz.

"Blood blossoms!" He gasped, and then had to turn and puke again. His arms trembled violently, but they held him up long enough to see that whatever was coming out of him was a dark, dark green and clumpy. He thought of cottage cheese and retched harder.

"_Danny_-" Sam appeared from nowhere and gripped his shoulder. Her blunt nails dug into his skin, like she was trying to force him human. "Danny, what'd you say?"

"Blood-_hhrk_-blood blossoms, in the tuna-" He hiccupped and groaned when his chest throbbed. Something deeper in him sloshed. He wondered if he-his Phantom self-was melting, like the tile floor when the frogs' acid hit it. He wondered if he was actually puking _himself_ up.

He decided that unconsciousness was better than _that_ train of thought.

* * *

"-don't know what's wrong with him exactly, so while we wait for Maddie to get back from your school I'm the final word and I'm sayin' you kids aren't getting any closer than this to him."

"But it's not contagious, Mr. Fenton! He ate blood blossoms, he said so himself."

"Blood whatsits?"

"Blossoms. They're flowers. Mr. Fenton, I ate a _lot_ of those in one sitting and apart from a mad case of diarrhea, I was fine. But they're _really_ bad news for ghosts."

"How bad?"

"The last time we ran into these, Danny never even touched one. Just being near them leveled him though. But as soon as I swallowed the last of 'em he recovered pretty quick."

"Are you serious? That's awesome! Just think of the advances we could make with our anti-ghost gear if we-"

"Dad! Danny's half-ghost!"

"And I couldn't be prouder of him. Why, just the other day-"

"Dad!"

"What? _Oh_."

* * *

Muffled voices, like being underwater. An argument. He recognized Sam's voice, Jazz's voice. The sound of glass breaking. Tucker shouting over them.

He wanted to intervene, but his legs weren't responding for some reason...

* * *

He heard his mother. "He's always had a fast metabolism, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's increased significantly since the accident. The amount of energy he expends when fighting is _incredible_."

"Uh, Mrs. Fenton? I don't think now's the best time to study Danny."

"You're right, Sam. Jack, how are his vitals looking?"

"Hard to tell, Babycakes. I pumped his stomach so clean he'll feel like he lost a fight with the Fenton Ghost Weasel for a week, but his temperature is still creepin' up and his heart's poundin' like a jackhammer."

"Danny doesn't look so good." Tucker's voice. He sounded tired, worried. "I mean, he's usually only _green_ when he's, you know, Phantom."

Hands touched his wrist, his face, tugged gently on tubes sticking out of his arm. "You're right. Jack, we need to run some more tests, make sure he's completely clean of any residual blood blossoms. You kids should get some sleep. Jazz, can you take them home?"

* * *

"Danny, can you hear me?"

He blinked up at his mother, but his eyesight failed to clear. He could see that the lab's harsh lights were on by the way they reduced his parents to dark shadows, their goggles reflecting like cat's eyes, but everything was still... murky. Like looking through muddy water.

"Munh," he said intelligently.

Deliciously cool hands pressed against his face. He leaned into the touch with a groan. His everything was sore. "Temperature remaining steady at 104 degrees," his mother said. "We'll need to get more ice."

"On it, Mrs. Fenton." What was Tucker doing in his bedroom?

(There weren't lab lights in his bedroom, he knew that on some level, but why would he be laid out on one of the exam tables?)

"Mahn?" Ugh. Close enough. "Wha-?"

"Ssh, it's alright, sweetie. I just need to ask you a few questions and then you can go back to sleep. Okay?"

"Y-yeah."

Her hand took his. He felt the dig of her mother's wedding ring-why were her gloves off? "Now Danny, I need you to squeeze my hand. Can you do that?"

He tried, he really did. But his fingers didn't move.

"Danny, hush, you'll be alright. Look at me."

"Can't," he slurred. "Dark." He was thirsty. He had never been so thirsty in his life.

"Limited paralysis has spread to upper limbs. Ocular degeneration has begun as well."

"Got it," said his father.

"Danny-" She was still talking, still asking questions, but they were talking about-about _him_ like one of their science projects. Cold and detached, clinical. The way they used to talk as they dissected ghosts. Were they studying him? He couldn't move, he couldn't move but neon green light played somewhere on his chest. Had they cut him open, what if they had cut him open, if he could look down at himself would he see his _ribs_-

Fear swallowed him.

* * *

"Danny!" Sam's sharp voice shocked him awake. He flailed, clumsily, his arms and legs barely responding to him. Adrenaline-under attack?-the school-_pain_-

"Blood blossoms!" He tried to sit up, but only managed a weak sort of flop. His hand hit a tray of medical equipment and sent it scattering. Pain lanced through him, and he screamed. "Blood blossoms blood blossoms blood bloss-"

Hands pressed him down onto the table, words washed over him, a pinprick in his arm and his panic soothed.

He drifted.

* * *

"-no change-"

* * *

"-blood in his stool-"

* * *

"-Jack, what kind of mother poisons her _own son?_"

"You didn't know, Maddie. It'll be alright. You didn't know."

* * *

"-signs of blistering of the stomach and esophagus, however respiratory system remains clear of inflammation. Let's be sure to keep an eye on that. X-rays show unexplained deterioration of-of the ribcage-"

* * *

"-no change, still no change-"

* * *

"-can't ask him to do that! The pain alone could-"

"We may not have a choice at this point."

* * *

"Danny?"

His eyes opened, he felt them open, but the darkness behind his eyelids didn't dim. Blind then. He suspected this realization should be a lot more alarming, but he was too tired to feel anything more than a slow, seeping sort of interest.

"Danny, can you hear me?"

Couldn't speak. Mouth too dry. Couldn't nod. Head too heavy. He blinked rapidly. It would have to do.

"Okay. Okay. Danny?" He registered who was talking to him-Sam. She sounded scared. He wanted to hold her hand. "We-we think we know how to fix you, but we can't-we can't do it while you're human."

Muzzily, he wondered what she meant. What was wrong with him? Like remembering a dream, he recalled flashes-

-a brown paper bag covered with flowers and hearts drawn in black Sharpie-

-looking at his hand in the boy's bathroom-

-puking up burnt black chunks of ectoplasm-

-his parents over him, the lab lights stinging his eyes-

-and he realized, he remembered. He was very sick.

"Hnn-luh lothas-" he mumbled. A part of him was appalled at how awful he sounded.

"We know," Sam whispered. Her hands gripped his tightly. "We know, it's ok. Danny, we need you to go ghost."

Why? Was there trouble?

"C'mon, Danny. I know it hurts, but you have to. It's the only way."

Why would it-oh. Right.

"Nngh-"

"I know, I know. Danny please, you'll be better after, I promise."

It took a few attempts to reach that little cold spark deep inside him, that little bit of ghost that never ever left him. He managed it at last.

So tired, he was so tired, but he still gave screaming the old college try.

* * *

"-getting worse-"

* * *

"-have to work faster, his molecular structure is completely deteriorating-"

* * *

"-won't stop screaming, he's not even conscious and he won't _stop_-"

* * *

"-my god, his chest, look at his _chest_-"

* * *

"-soup-"

* * *

"Valerie, what are you doing?!"

"Saving his life, now shut up and get out of the way, Manson-"

* * *

"-love you, Danny. I know I don't say it enough but I do, and I just-you have to get better now, okay? Danny? Are you-"

* * *

"-know you can hear me, dude. Your tail twitches when you're awake. So listen to me. For once in your life, listen to me. You gotta get better. Don't save the world twenty-five million times just to get owned by a _plant_, that's just-embarrassing-Danny, please man, say something-"

* * *

"-don't cry, Maddie, it'll be alright. We'll figure this out. One of our tests will give us good results. Danny will be fine in no time."

"How? Jack, we've tried everything, and our boy is-he's-oh god!"

* * *

"-the strongest person I know, you have to pull through this, Danny. As-as your big sister you have to listen to me. It's-the rules. Please, just let me know you can hear me-"

* * *

"There you are. Now listen here, Ghost Kid, you've caused this city a lot of grief and you don't _get_ to take the easy way out. You _promised_ me, Danny, so you stop this right now. Get up. Get up! Hey wait, don't pass out on me, Danny Fenton, or so help me-"

* * *

"-don't know what to do-"

* * *

**"TIME OUT."**


	3. Chapter 3

Danny Fenton opened his eyes and could see. This was important, but he couldn't quite remember why.

He took stock of his surroundings-quiet, dark, cool. He was laid out on one of the lab's steel exam tables. Or rather, one of the lab's steel exam tubs, the long, deep kind that reminded him uncomfortably of coffins. He thought he was alone, until he looked towards the stairs and saw Jazz, Tucker, Sam, and Valerie-frozen in mid-conversation.

"Wh-_nngh_." Scratch talking. Talking was a _terrible_ idea. Who ever thought talking was a good form of communication should be fired and chased out of town.

"Hello, Danny." Clockwork's unmistakable voice resolved the question of what had happened to his friends, but his abortive attempt to look behind him woke up a whole grocery list of aches and pains. If talking was a bad idea, moving was the worst idea anyone had ever come up with ever. Period.

Clockwork floated up to the tub, bearing his usual enigmatic smile. "Don't bother getting up; I was on my way out."

Danny cast a confused glance towards his friends. The only source of light came from the Ghost Portal, its poisonous green color all the creepier for how still it was. But even discounting the poor angle he had of them, they all looked awful. Exhausted, hunched with worry, the familiar etch of genuine fear tugging at their mouths.

He wondered how long he had been down in the lab.

"Ah yes," said Clockwork, "I suspected the idea of a miracle cure coming from an anonymous benefactor would not sit well with you." He raised one wry eyebrow, as if to imply his use of the word _suspected_ had been a small joke. It was always hard to tell with him. "I'll need that medallion back when I leave."

Danny glanced down at himself, half-afraid he'd see one of Clockwork's strange medallions half-submerged in his chest. His memory was syrup-sticky and full of holes, but he definitely remembered lovely little phrases like "molecular degeneration" and "raw ectoplasm baths," which called all too easily to mind Dani's close-call with complete destabilization. It was no small relief to see-_feel_-the medallion lying neatly on his perfectly normal chest.

Clockwork leaned over him, aging with his usual eerie speed from child to adult. In the hand not carrying his staff he held up an empty glass vial, about six inches long and tinged pink by whatever had been in it. "With some help from this you'll be right as rain in no time. Feel free to thank me at any time-although I wouldn't bother asking what I've administered just yet. Another time, perhaps." The ghost smiled not unkindly, his face wrinkling rapidly with age.

With a grunt of pain he couldn't help, Danny raised one arm to look at his gloved hand. Experimentally, he fisted it a few times. Stiff, creaky, but it moved when he wanted it too, which was a novelty all on its own. Yet he needed to be sure- even though he was Phantom, even though he was free of the unmistakable burn of blood blossoms. He forced his hand invisible. There was a slight strain, more of weakness than of hurt, but he could do it.

"Th-thank you," he rasped, letting his hand fall weakly to his side. Talking was still a terrible idea, but he had to ask, "Why?"

"Because," Clockwork replied as he reached for the silk ribbon around Danny's neck, "You're my responsibility."

* * *

The next time Danny woke, he was in his own bed, dressed in his own pajamas, looking up at his own ceiling as early morning light painted it gray. It was the first time he could remember feeling properly warm since-well, since whenever it had been that he'd found those ghosts outside the science lab. It felt amazing. He never wanted to get up, but he was pretty sure his bladder wasn't going to let him lay there much longer.

He had to pee. _He actually had to pee._

It was funny, what you missed about being alive when you had a near-death experience.

Someone snored gently on his left. He looked and saw Jazz slumped in a chair, her fingers loosely stuck in a textbook of parapsychology. A fine curl of hair near her mouth ruffled with every exhale. He smiled and quietly slipped out from under the blankets.

Walking was tough, but not nearly as tough as he'd expected. His whole body was sore and wobbly, and he had never been more aware of his bones. So he maybe had to lean a little on the hallway wall once or twice when his lightheadedness got a bit strong. No one was watching to see him stumble. In fact, it seemed like everyone else in the house was asleep. He didn't flush the toilet and only turned the sink faucet to a soft trickle so as not to disturb anyone.

As he washed his hands his reflection stared back at him with sunken, washed-out eyes. His cheekbones jutted. His teeth looked too big for his mouth. He looked down at his hands and watched tendons he couldn't normally see shift under veins bright as blueberries. His wrists looked massive.

He dried his hands.

In the bathroom doorway, he paused and listened. Downstairs, there was the whisper of papers being shuffled.

At the top of the stairs he paused and considered the weakness of his legs. Should he risk it? Walking sucked. Stairs would probably suck a lot more. He opted for a low hover and couldn't help grinning. Something so normal-well, for him-hadn't felt so easy, so _natural_, in-too long.

Sprawled out on the couch were Tucker and Sam, shoeless and bundled up in a pair of Fenton Emergency Blankets. They looked as tired as Jazz did, and light and noise came from the kitchen, so he left them to sleep.

Valerie sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee and studying reams of loose-leaf notes. Her hair was a mess, not bedhead messy, but the sticky-out way it got whenever she was stressed and couldn't keep her fingers out of it. She didn't see him until he cleared his throat.

"Danny!" she whispered, jumping to her feet. He didn't resist when she helped him to the table; he still didn't quite trust his legs to support him without a nearby wall.

Once he was seated, she asked, "How are you feeling?"

"Thirsty." She quickly poured him a glass of water from the faucet and brought it to him. He downed it in two large gulps, downed a second the same way, and gestured for her to sit after she gave him a third glass to sip. "Thanks."

"No problem." She sat down, discreetly shuffling some of the papers on the table aside, something he didn't miss but opted not to comment on.

"So, uh, how long was I...?"

Valerie bit her lip. "Nine days."

"Wow." He set his glass down and leaned back. "That's-that is a _lot_ of lost time."

It was worrying to watch her school her face into an expression of wary curiosity. It looked too much like a doctor trying to figure out the nicest way to say he was going to die of brain parasites or something. "You don't remember anything?" she asked carefully.

"No-well, I mean I remember the ghosts at school, and I know mom accidentally dosed me with blood blossoms, but everything after that is kinda..." He grimaced, unwilling to spell out the gooier bits he could remember just yet. "blurry."

Her shoulders relaxed with a palpable relief. "Well I'll be honest, Danny, it was bad." She sobered, looking at the middle distance near his elbow, as if she couldn't help but remember something unpleasant. "Real bad."

"Tell me," he rasped. And because this was Valerie, because the bad air between them had long since been cleared, because they had promised that there would be no more secrets, she only sighed before setting her arms on the table.

She explained, detailing when prompted, how the blood blossoms had reacted within what approximated his stomach when he was Phantom, how his reactions had spread to his human half once he had begun to metabolize the flowers, and how they had prompted obviously uncontrolled ghost powers, even when he was unconscious. She told him how his family and friends tried everything they could before they had no choice but to get him to go ghost. She told him how his parents had modified the ecto-filtrator to completely clean the residual blossoms from his system. How it had stopped further reactions, but hadn't done anything for the damage already done. How thirty percent of his body, human and ghost, were irreparably burned.

"I didn't enter the picture until the fifth day," she said. "You hadn't been to school since the ghosts attacked, and your sister, Sam, and Tucker stopped showing up a couple days after." She shrugged. "I was worried, so I went to your house and saw-you were-" She bit her lip again.

"Soup?" He shrugged when she flinched. "Hey, I said it was blurry, not totally blank."

"Yeah," she said, and continued reluctantly. "You were getting pretty-soupy-by then. I got one look at you and then asked your folks where they kept the Ecto Dejecto."

"Because of Danielle." Danny took another deep drink of water, pausing to enjoy the cool feel of it as it slipped down his throat. "I'm glad you showed up when you did. Everything I heard-not much!" He hastily waved his hands when her expression tightened, "Just enough. You're right. I really was almost a goner."

"That's the thing, Danny." She leaned forward. "We all took turns monitoring you, giving you regular doses of Ecto-Dejecto and soaking you in raw ectoplasm after regular IVs stopped being any use. We helped your parents when we could, we-we scooped up bits of you that splashed out whenever you had a seizure-" She swallowed. "We were all doing everything we could, but we weren't _curing_ you. Nothing worked, and no one knew if you would just lay there or if the next seizure would be the one that finished you off or-"

"Valerie-"

"And then yesterday, when we came downstairs, you looked at us and _waved_."

"Ha, that must have freaked you guys out pretty bad."

The look Valerie gave him made him regret opening his mouth. "Danny, it isn't _funny_. You weren't just hurt, the blood blossoms completely destabilized your molecular structure, burned your core ectoplasm and a lot of your internal tissues, gave you seizures, _paralyzed_ you, _blinded_ you-"

"Caused me indescribable agony and made me puke up like thirty pounds of my own guts, blah blah." He gave her a pointed look. "I know Val, I was there."

"_Danny Fenton_," she snapped, and her voice was as harsh as it had been in the days when she had wanted to see Phantom a green smear on the asphalt. "You were _dying_, and then all of a sudden you just got better. Danny, what _happened?_"

He sighed. "Clockwork."

"Excuse me?"

"He's a ghost. The super powerful and irritatingly enigmatic kind. Master of All Time kind of powerful. Sounds threatening, I know, but it's rare to see him outside the Ghost Zone. You have to go looking for him if you want his help."

"And why would he want to help you? Most ghosts aren't real big fans of Phantom, in case you hadn't noticed."

Danny ignored the jab. "He's-I guess he's kind of like a mentor to me? He helped me out with-with a problem awhile back, and ever since then he's been willing to lend me a hand when things get too bad for me to handle on me own."

"What kind of problem?" Valerie asked suspiciously.

"The kind with reality-changing results. Never mind that though, it's old news."

"Danny-"

He held up a hand, hating the tremble of his too-skinny arm. "Later, Val. I promise."

"I'm holding you to that." She set her elbows on the table. "So tell me about this Clockwork guy. What'd he do?"

Danny shrugged. "I'm not sure, actually. I know he gave me something. I woke up down in the lab feeling-well, like total crap to be honest, but a _lot_ better than before. He was on his way out, but he made sure I knew who saved my butt."

"How magnanimous of him," Valerie deadpanned. "So why didn't we hear the Ghost Portal activate?"

Danny tried to laugh, but all he could muster were a couple wheezy exhalations before his chest hurt too much. "Hello, Master of All Time? You think a guy with a title like that needs to bother with the Ghost Portal?"

Valerie pursed her lips. "You're right. I don't like how threatening that sounds."

"I can take you to his Tower sometime if you wanna meet him. Trust me though, there's no way you can get the jump on him, I've tried." Danny sobered, staring at the condensation slipping down his half-empty glass.

"What's the matter?"

Danny's brow knitted and his mouth thinned. "He said something before he left that's bugging me."

"What'd he say?"

"I asked him why he saved me, and he said that-that I was his 'responsibility.'"

"I don't like the sound of that either." She leaned forward again. "Can we trust this ghost?"

"Yeah." She raised her eyebrows, a textbook example of dubiousness. "_Yes_, Val. I promise we can trust Clockwork."

"Okay, okay!" She smiled, and then quickly had to hide a yawn behind one hand.

"Looks like you need some shuteye too," he said with a smirk.

Valerie stubbornly shook her head. "I'm okay. Besides, I promised your folks I'd keep an eye on you if you woke up while they were still out." She returned the smirk. "You know, make sure you didn't do anything stupid?"

Danny wheezed laughter again, already sounding a little bit more like his old self. "Who, me?"

"Yes, you." She began to gather the papers on the table together, and Danny couldn't help but catch glimpses of x-rays and neon green photographs amid the computer printouts. His stomach clenched, and he decided that later was a better time to look at his own inside-out anatomy. Much later.

Valerie's laughter subdued, and her eyes rested heavily on Danny. "Seriously though, Ghost Kid, you doing good? You really scared us."

He raised his hands and summoned a ball of bright green energy between them. "It's too early to say 'never better,'" he replied, bouncing the ball in his palms, "but I think I'll be ready to 'accidentally' burn down the stand Jazz bought those blood blossoms from in a few days."

She rolled her eyes. "No arson until you get a clean bill of health from your folks."

He let the energy disperse harmlessly and held his hands up in self-defense. "Have you _met_ my parents? The common cold is practically cause for quarantine. I _know_ I'm not going anywhere for a while." He stood, gripping the table for balance and waving Valerie off when she made to help. "I'm alright, just starving."

"I figured." She punched him lightly in the arm. "Sit your bony butt down, Ghost Kid; I'll make you a sandwich. Just don't get used to this."

Danny sat down gratefully, happy to be awake-happy to be _alive_-at five o' clock on a Thursday morning. "Thanks. Um, anything but tuna?"

* * *

_Author's Note: And that's it! Title is from The Faint's "Take Me to the Hospital."_


End file.
